Bordercollie
Senior Member
Really? he could have build more transit with that money.
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Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion
- Thread starter Haljackey
- Start date
11th
Senior Member
That is thinking from perspective of individual who has finite amount of money. The government can build more transit even without that money.
DirectionNorth
Active Member
The government has a finite amount of money. Maybe you won't be paying it back, but it will have to be paid in 10, or 20, or 30 years. I still plan to be around at that time, and I don't want to pay for electoral bullshit in the future.
11th
Senior Member
True, but that seems to be the flavour of the day at most levels of governments - borrow like there's no tomorrow.
ARG1
Senior Member
More like thinking from the perspective of individual who views transit vs cars as a zero sum game, that money for cars is money that isn't going to transit. We're spending like $30 billion on Transit with stuff like the subway projects and GO Expansion (factoring in the Federal government paying 50% of the cost for the subway projects), we are not short in transit investment. While spending $1 Billion on what is clearly pandering to voters is definitely not great, at the very least it does accomplish the stated goal of providing Ontarians with extra cash to recoup some of their COVID costs (don't forget that most Ontarian families have cars), so I can't be that angry about this move. Its whatever.
Steve X
Senior Member
Alternatively they could just spend less on road repairs. Here comes Quebec/Manitoba highways!!!
mtomo
New Member
In theory, corporations are not supposed to pay tax. The money flows through to individuals who then pay personal income tax.
Sorry to go off topic.
I owned an incorporated small business for a lot of years. We definitely paid taxes. I guess we missed the theory 
JasonParis
Moderator
As far as Ford ploys go, this isn't the worst. Better than cutting excise taxes, which essentially does nothing after about a month when profit takes the difference. However, I would be more "OK" with this if his government also reinstated the TTC-GO discount plan they strangely cancelled two years ago costing many transit-riders more, despite trying to build an integrated network.
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lenaitch
Senior Member
I guess that would explain why they have a corporate tax rate and get about 14% of their tax revenue from it.I owned an incorporated small business for a lot of years. We definitely paid taxes. I guess we missed the theory
ericmacm
Active Member
There's no point in getting up in arms about provincial revenue source being lost with the disappearance of plate stickers, it is not accurate information. As per CTV Toronto, the official numbers for 2018-2019 by the Ontario Financial Accountability Officer (FAO) indicated that the program brought in $1.95B, but cost around $2.4B to run, resulting in a net loss of approximately $436M. The program costs more to run than the amount of revenue it brings in on a non-pandemic year. Losses are likely much greater for 2020 and 2021. In the same article, the FAO says the impact to the province from cutting the program will be a loss of approximately $1B, but I think they are referring to the up-front cost of refunding everyone's plate stickers, not an annual cost to the province. This means that assuming the program racks up similar losses, the cost of refunds and removal of the program should pay for itself in roughly two years.
With this information, it makes perfect sense to cut the program. In fact, it should have likely been cut years ago. Think of it as a down payment on either approximately half a billion less on the annual deficit, or half a billion more in potential highway or transit funding each year. The real questions people should be asking are: how long was the program unprofitable for, and why was it left running for three years after it was not seen as profitable in 2018-2019?
With this information, it makes perfect sense to cut the program. In fact, it should have likely been cut years ago. Think of it as a down payment on either approximately half a billion less on the annual deficit, or half a billion more in potential highway or transit funding each year. The real questions people should be asking are: how long was the program unprofitable for, and why was it left running for three years after it was not seen as profitable in 2018-2019?
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lenaitch
Senior Member
It would be interesting to see the FAO report. According to the linked article, motorists will still have to renew their registration, so everything that currently happens will still happen, just for free, so the same infrastructure expense but much reduced revenue.
turini2
Active Member
Having had a look at the FAO report - it's not the case that the registration system costs £2.4bn to run, that cost is much wider. It's about 85% cost recovery.
As an example - Vehicle Excise Duty - an annual tax on road vehicles in the UK - generates around £6bn a year. It's done digitally, it's linked to the vehicle registration - no longer required to show a 'tax disc' in the from of the vehicle.
Personally a better idea would be moving to a purely digital system, and charging people based on their vehicle size/emissions. Here in the UK, the cost varies from £0 for zero emission vehicles all the way to about £550 a year for the most polluting!
If anything, with the growth in EVs and the fall away in "gas tax" revenues - countries should be moving further towards these kinds of revenue tools, not giving them up!
As an example - Vehicle Excise Duty - an annual tax on road vehicles in the UK - generates around £6bn a year. It's done digitally, it's linked to the vehicle registration - no longer required to show a 'tax disc' in the from of the vehicle.
Personally a better idea would be moving to a purely digital system, and charging people based on their vehicle size/emissions. Here in the UK, the cost varies from £0 for zero emission vehicles all the way to about £550 a year for the most polluting!
If anything, with the growth in EVs and the fall away in "gas tax" revenues - countries should be moving further towards these kinds of revenue tools, not giving them up!
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wopchop
Building Toronto
Keep in mind that I believe that the FAO report is talking about the entire program - both for vehicles <4500kg and vehicles >4500kg (i.e. commercial trucks)
What is being eliminated is only the revenue from the former, but apparently registrations will still be required. Meaning some costs will also remain.
So it is not so simple as using the numbers in the FAO report.
Presumably it also costs more to administer the commercial vehicle program, as it is more onerous and complicated.
What is being eliminated is only the revenue from the former, but apparently registrations will still be required. Meaning some costs will also remain.
So it is not so simple as using the numbers in the FAO report.
Presumably it also costs more to administer the commercial vehicle program, as it is more onerous and complicated.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Those fees paid for the personnel in the offices. Including the private sector who run ServiceOntario. Now the Ontario government will pay the private sector from general revenue.
See link.
Own a private ServiceOntario centre
Of course, those owners (shareholders) of those "independent businesses" have to get a return on their investment, that is more than the interest rates or mortgage rates. Instead of paying the employees a good salary, they want a big dividend for themselves.
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